Did Jesus Elevate the Second Table of the Law?
I want to address this to Colleen Tinker; it’s what I have been prompted by the Holy Spirit to write. It is the story in Matthew’s gospel of the rich young ruler as recorded in Matthew 19:16-22. The ruler asked Jesus from the NLT translation, “What good thing must I do to have eternal life?”
Jesus’ reply was to keep the commandments. Only in this gospel did the ruler asked Jesus to qualify His answer. He asked, “Which ones?” Then Jesus enumerated the second table of the 10 Commandments with the addition of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
From this story it shows that Jesus puts importance on the second half of the 10 Commandments. It is what the apostle Paul calls in Galatians the “Law of Christ”. Paul said in Galatians 6:2, “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” This is what matters in the New Covenant, isn’t it?
In 1 John 4:20 John says, “How can one say I love God whom he cannot see, and his brother whom he can see, he does not help him?”
I can see in the story that Jesus becomes our Sabbath Rest when we believe in Him and accept Him as Lord and Savior, as Hebrews 4:3 emphasizes, “We who have believed enter His rest.” Now in the new covenant, our Sabbath rest that remains to be entered into is the person of Jesus and His finished work. It is not required anymore to keep Saturday Sabbath. The “Today” in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 is now the Christian Sabbath Rest. That rest is eternal from the time a believer believes in Jesus. I have not heard it preached like this. What do you think, sister Colleen?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing. I believe that you have accurately identified the Sabbath rest of being in Christ. This is the new covenant Sabbath rest.
I also believe that you are seeing that the Adventist teaching about the rich young ruler misses the point. However, I would say that Jesus’ answer to that man was far deeper than the portion of the law to which He referred.
First, the law of Christ is not derived from the Ten Commandments. Adventism taught us that the Ten are eternal and are the transcript of God’s character. Yet Romans 5 :12–14 is very clear that there was no law before Moses, even though sin reigned in man from Adam onward. Jesus’ teaching was never that our good deeds for mankind are the expression of the last six commandments, nor is there any suggestion that the last six are somehow more significant for the Christ-follower.
Further, the “law of Christ” is not derived from the Ten, either. Rather, the Ten were authored by God Himself, and God Himself in the person of the Son fulfilled the entire law. Hebrews 7:11, 12 tells us that because Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek instead of Aaron, there is of necessity a change of the law. The law was based on the foundation of the levitical priesthood. With a new priesthood, there must be a new law.
Jesus gave us the law of Christ. Beginning in Matthew 5–7 in the Sermon on the Mount, He systematically began giving HIS law. He would say, “You have heard it said,” for example, do not commit adultery, and then He would state, “but I say…” and He delivered the new law governed by His eternal blood and new priesthood. The new law is far more demanding and far-reaching than the Ten. Jesus said, for example, that under His authority, adultery includes internal lust even if it’s never practiced.
Jesus also established that there is only one work that is the work of God: believe in the One whom [the Father] sent (Jn. 6:29). And Jesus gave a new commandment: love one another as He loved us. That kind of love is sacrificial, not just good works.
It’s hard to realize, for those of us who were Adventists, that the Law is not the source of morality. God Himself is the source of righteousness and morality and good behaviors. Jesus wasn’t elevating the law to that man, but He was exposing the heart of his idolatry: he loved his riches more than he trusted Jesus. He had to trust Jesus and follow Him.
What Jesus really said to the rich young ruler that changed the paradigm was, essentially, that the commandments could not save that man, nor were they ABLE to save him. What he had to do, essentially, was to give up what he loved the most—his riches—and follow Jesus. He had to be willing to leave everything he valued—even his own identity and social standing and, we might add, his very beliefs. He had to give up everything and FOLLOW Jesus.
That relinquishing of his treasures and trusting and believing Jesus and then following Him because He had believed was the way he could be saved.
Response to “Do We Have to Please God?”
I have been [watching the Former Adventist YouTube channel] for a bit, and I feel like there is much more fixation on error than truth.
—VIA YOUTUBE
Response from moderator Jim Liley: I’m not going to speak for Colleen, only for myself. I spent 45 years believing and supporting with my time and money this SDA counterfeit pseudo-Christian organization. Throughout this time I could feel in my spirit that something wasn’t quite right. One-day I said to myself ‘What is it that you believe and is it truth?’ I had been raised believing what I had been taught was 100% based on the bible alone. If this were true, in my mind true Christian’s, should at least agree with the essentials on what a Christian believes. The bible is clear that Christ would build His church and that nothing would destroy it. Then it hit me (I believe that it was the Holy Spirit) Why would a Holy, sovereign God wait 1800 years to raise up a special end times group of people who declared they couldn’t preach the same gospel as Noah, as Abraham, as Paul and Peter, and by all the prophets and apostles of past ages. Here’s the point HE WOULDN’T.
“To the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been committed, this message. The everlasting gospel was preached by Noah, by Abraham, by Paul and Peter, and by all the prophets and apostles of past ages. It was preached in the setting appropriate to their day. We cannot preach this gospel message as Noah preached it, or as Paul or Luther gave it. It is for us to preach it in the setting of God’s great threefold message of Revelation 14.” “The Gospel Message and the Gospel Messenger”. Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, 29 November 1934, p. 1
Here are some links to articles and podcasts explaining why the ’SDA 28 Fundamental Beliefs’ can’t be considered to align with true Christian essential beliefs.
Adventism Examined BY RICK BARKER
“Inspecting Adventism’s Beliefs” podcasts by Colleen and Nikki
- January 11–17, 2025 - January 10, 2025
- We Got Mail - January 10, 2025
- January 4–10, 2025 - January 2, 2025